Tag: Renee Good

Outpouring by Alison Luterman

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Outpouring

A bucket of water tossed on the frozen streets of Minneapolis
for the ICE agent to slip on while running at the crowd of protesters;

a river of souls streaming through the avenues
chanting Renee Good’s name, waving posters of her sunflower face;

a tsunami of people all over the world sending money and encouraging notes
to the ones buying groceries for the ones who are hiding,

afraid to go to work, or school, or the store;
everyone marching together in zero degree weather, scared

and defiant, weathered activists arm-in-arm with new-to-this Gen Z kids–
those with nothing to lose, those with everything,

blowing their whistles, following the black SUVs,
banging pots and pans outside the Hilton where the agents are trying to sleep,

saying No, not in my neighborhood, saying MacBeth
shall sleep no more, crying Murder most foul, sleep no more;

What is this outpouring? Where’s the source? Will it be enough?
Today, we’re all Minnesotans, from California to Maine: we’re tired,

hoarse, footsore, at the ragged edge of endurance from getting up before dawn
to protect our schools, our neighbors; still, there’s no stopping this

outpouring of people, in all the states and every weather while the sky itself
pours snow and sleet all over the blasted heath they are trying to make

of our country. Outpouring of disgust at the mad king and his masked army,
a united swell, an upsurge, a tsunami of courage and outrage

flooding the streets and highways and byways
with humanity declaring itself human in the face of the faceless,

singing Hold On in four-part harmony, testimony rising up
and pouring forth in faith; a cascade, a deluge, a torrent of love.

*

Alison Luterman’s five books of poetry are The Largest Possible Life, See How We Almost Fly, Desire Zoo, In the Time of Great Fires, and Hard Listening. She also writes plays, song lyrics, and personal essays. She has taught at New College, The Writing Salon, Catamaran, Esalen and Omega Institutes and writing workshops around the country, as well as working as a California poet in the schools for many years.

Sticking With Poetry by Laurie Kuntz

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Sticking With Poetry

For Renee Good, mother, wife, sister, poet. Rest In Poetry

It is always the troll, rude and despicable
who posts the unfathomable comment:

She should have stuck with poetry

after she, the poet, the activist, the lover, the mother, friend, sister
was brutally gunned down.

She should have stuck with poetry,

but the poetry she stuck with
made her who she was that day
not angry, just trying to resist,
to be the voice
that poems are made of.

She stuck with poetry, or poetry stuck with her,
that’s why she was a woman who loved a child
who strived in the world she hoped to make better,
who resisted, spoke out about right and wrong,
she stuck with poetry, so her words can stick with us
as she rests in this poem.

*

Laurie Kuntz is a four time Pushcart Prize nominee and two time Best of the Net Nominee. In 2024, she won a Pushcart Prize. She published seven books of poetry. Her latest book published in 2025 is Balance, published by Moonstone Arts Center. In 2026, her 8th book, Shelter In Place will be published by Shanti Arts Press. Her themes come from working with Southeast Asian refugees, living as an expatriate in Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, and Brazil, and raising a husband and son.
Visit her at: https://lauriekuntz.myportfolio.com/home-1

Dust Rag Blues by Nicole Caruso Garcia

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Dust Rag Blues
      For Renee Nicole Macklin Good (d. January 7, 2026)

Steadying the globe, I thumb Caracas.
We snatched Maduro and we seized Caracas?
Our Thug-in-Chief’s illegal orders mock us.

My index finger rests on Minnesota:
ICE shot a mom (unarmed) in Minnesota.
She dared stand up to goons who have a quota.

These men stretch latitude—our country reeling.
I clean the hemispheres, set gently reeling,
And smooth the strip of red: equator peeling.

*

Nicole Caruso Garcia (she/her) is the author of OXBLOOD (Able Muse Press), which received the International Book Award for narrative poetry. Her work appears in Crab Orchard Review, Light, Mezzo Cammin, ONE ART, Plume, Rattle, RHINO, and elsewhere. Her poetry has received the Willow Review Award, won a 2021 Best New Poets honor, and has been nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She is an associate poetry editor at Able Muse and served as an executive board member at the annual conference, Poetry by the Sea. Visit her at nicolecarusogarcia.com.